Advocates for animal welfare came out ahead of California hunters Wednesday when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a hard-fought bill banning the use of dogs for hunting bears and bobcats.

Both sides had lobbied lawmakers and the governor tirelessly over SB1221 by Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance (Los Angeles County), which will take effect Jan. 1. While there are exceptions for aggressive animals and research, the bill makes it illegal in most cases to use packs of dogs to chase bears and bobcats into trees, where hunters shoot them.

"There is nothing sporting in shooting an exhausted bear clinging to a tree limb or a cornered bobcat," Lieu said in a written statement. "Hound hunting of bears is illegal in two-thirds of the United States. California now joins the great majority of states that have abolished this inhumane and unnecessary practice."

Many Republicans opposed the bill. In a statement Wednesday, Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County) said it will "infringe" on rights of hunters.

"I am deeply disappointed that the governor has chosen to sign this into law," he said.

Support for the bill grew, in part, out of the uproar caused by a photo released earlier this year showing the then-president of the California Fish and Game Commission posing with a dead cougar. Dan Richards, who was later voted out of the presidency by his commission colleagues, legally used dogs to track the mountain lion in Idaho, where it is legal; California bans all hunting of the large cats.

On Wednesday, Brown signed another bill related to that controversy: AB2609, which requires state officials to consider whether a Fish and Game Commission appointee has a background in natural resources management, subjects commission members to the same ethics laws as other state commissioners and changes the rules for electing commission leadership.

Richards was elected president, 2-0, at a meeting where one commissioner was absent and others abstained from voting; he was up for the position because at the time, the body's rules called for automatically nominating the most senior member. AB2609 by Assemblyman Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, requires commission leadership to be chosen by a majority of the five member body and prohibits the commission from using seniority alone to pick a president or vice president.

Also, Brown signed AB1776 by Mountain View Democratic Assemblyman Paul Fong, which designates the Pacific leatherback sea turtle as the state's official marine reptile. The sea turtle joins the desert tortoise, the California grizzly bear and the California quail, the state's other official animals.